It is with a certain sense of deja-vu that I approached “Tightrope” by WalkingSoundtracks: much too explicit intentions in the WalkingSoundtracks name itself while the title is not even in my imaginary.
What I found is a self-produced 8-tracks album gently moving through several references and styles, always revealing a personal sense of drama, deserving multiple and differentiate listenings.
Guitar, saxophones, clarinet, cello, samples, synthesizers and drum machine, along with several female singers: these are the main ingredients of the plate. The chef who composed and recorded it is Nicola Di Croce, trained as a guitarist, fond of electronic music (and by chance, an architect), whose main sensibility lies in the surprising balance between electronics, samples and acoustic instruments (reminding me of Icarus‘ birdy electric world and the whole Leaf Label distopic research.)
A central focus though is given by field recordings which punctuates all along.
It deals mainly with voices catched in public spaces, recalling Koji Marutani‘s Scenes even if with a different sensibility and density. Different environment fragments emerge as part of the structures, melting with the beats and shaping passages in an Herbert-like swing (especially in that gem titled “Fall Voice”) while sometimes they are simply layered down as a sort of general colour, which seems to be more an alignment with some folktronica à la The Books rather than a personal path.

The field recordings practice can be a trap for musicians: too often extremely tidy compositions seem to completely miss an attitude, thus resulting an illusion for the listeners.
I’m speaking about making music, I’m pointing to the final purpose, to that abstract and immediate pleasure of melody, to the hearty appetite for the beat, to the immediatness of musical forms…
That’s why I do like this record: despite the name/project WS deals freely with instruments as well as field recordings, pure notes along with dirty noises, but it finally aims to music and surely not to “sonic landscapes” or “sonic documents”.
“A cross section, a passing through cities, an open poem, the wonder of noises”, this is WalkingSoundtracks’ self-description and if I should condense it in a single word I would use “cinema”: listen to how theme insists in “Trading”, the wide loneliness of “Through” or the initial over-talking and the psychotic escape of “Nonsense Sharing”.
Most of these songs are inspired soundtracks and themes, music dodging an easy labeling and stating a sincere point of view (and of listening) to the world.

Circuit Parallele – The Last Traces Of Civilization CD Album, Spine Research And Experiments 02, Germany, May 7, 2012

One day it will rain forever.
It will be a long ending, an infinite echo, an empty eternity.
And if some music could be played then, it should be this work.
“The Last Traces Of Civilization” is a 12 tracks album built at the Substance Strange Studio in the past 4 years, following that powerful and instinctive 6-movements vinyl titled “Umani Autodistruttivi“, an embryo of what is out now and a first research for the Spine label.
What we have here now are electronic machines and electric instruments perfectly balanced along with environmental samples and human voices, everything melted, played and directed both in straight and emotional way.

The first two tracks introduce us to the panorama (with such titles as “Radiation Leak” and “The Insanity Of Willful Destruction”), then “Nothing Is Left” takes us outside for the first time: outside of time, body and humanity, floating in the inner sphere for 9 minutes, which is probably the minimum dose for a deep listener.
Follower “Mekanischer” (whose video has been brilliantly directed by Yann’s long-term companion Dan Moss aka Dan Hekate) keeps us suddenly back on the ground, in a crazy meeting of mechanical and organic rhythms, clashed through overlappings and feedbacks, a perfect opposite to “Plutonium 239″, composed exclusively with frequencies, sounds coming like bullets, live up to Merzbow and Pan Sonics (these two sister tracks become a trio later on, together with another abstract column titled “HAARP” from the namesake space-radio research project).
If there was no question that Circuit Parallele was a very original musician it should be also pointed out that he is a fearless musician: no fear of his own feelings, no fear of the outside world, no fear of silence. It’s without any fear that the middle of the path is marked with a single piano note, it’s the opening of “Là Où Les Oiseaux Dorment “, an abyss of melodies, perfect as an Aphex’s “Selected Ambient Works”, dramatically marked by a dog bark and definitely romantic when a guitar-like sample appears in the middle: we’re outside again, somewhere in the bloodflow.
Follower “Hey” strikingly introduces a slow 4/4 rhythm, a beat layered back to an aching melody, a lyrical movement with an undefinable portamento.
After passing over the third column (“HAARP”) a prediction is coming: almost 10 minutes of “Personne Ne Sait “, music like an electric wire, a line of tension where a terrible revelation seems constantly on the point to end every live thing.
“Poisoned” opens up with bees buzz and displays once again Yann’s ability to compose melodies with incredible outer-space sounds, once again on a slow, doomy electro beat.
“Demagogy”, despite its political title, is a lost, a dreary, obscure and misterious outro. We are completely beyond, founding ourselves in a “Silenzio Assurdo”.

This music is terribly true, aware of the apocalyptic taste of our time as the dark age dawns. It is not a curse neither a celebration, it is a chant, maybe not the last but a chant without illusions.
More than a perfect record, more than a masterpiece (and it is…), this is a definitive record, the soundtrack for the end of our age.
It’s truly impossible to predict what’s beyond.

– – –

CD is out in a handnumbered limited edition of 300 copies housed in silk-screened cloth bag.
Artwork By Ambra Brigazzi.
An “Extra” ltd version with bonus tracks and short films will be available in June on USB key.

Hi,Thursday May 24th 2012 – 8pm (UK time), broadcasting on illFM – London
“Untitled Show” program #5, entirely realized by Miki Semascus.
Conceived as 2 hours radio show this work is a summary of several years of audio production: live sets, soundworks, soundtracks. A significant though personal inner view of the musical dimension pursued on this blog: Sounds, Voices, Noises > Music.

Morevoer, the radio show format is the first output of the Twin Voices project.